It's finally warming up in the DC area and will be in the fifties today, which should melt some of the snow piles we still have.

TOTD: It's been a grim week in the news, so for the sake of a little levity, what's the best practical joke you ever played or had played on you?
We helped friends play an elaborate one; we spent the afternoon moving furniture out of the living and dining rooms so they were empty. That evening, when their daughter arrived after a long drive, my husband and I (who were strangers to her) opened the door and convinced the daughter that her parents had moved, we had just bought the house, and we had no idea where they were. This went on for quite awhile until her father couldn't contain his laughter any more and came down. She didn't see the joke quite as well as he did.

lacarnut

01-15-2010, 09:25 AM

Highs in the 50's today and it will get a little warmer next week. With the low temp. the last several days , it looks like I will have to replace several plants that look like they are going into rigor mortis.

TOTD: I have a number of funny golf stories. I was playing with one of the teenagers at the country club and passed his dad on a parallel hole. I told the son that your dad needs to take lessons from getting worse. We both got a laugh out of it because his dad was a terrible golfer. A few days later his dad came into the golf shop and told me "I heard what you said about my golf swing". I was speechless but he started laughing so everything was cool.

noonwitch

01-15-2010, 10:35 AM

It's definitely warmer. It didn't get below freezing last night, so the snow is melting pretty constantly. It's cloudy and gloomy, though.

The best prank I ever took part in was one played on my AP English teacher during my senior year of high school. He used to drink coffee every day, and then leave the cup on the eraser tray under one of the chalkboards. If he forgot about that cup at the end of one day, he'd bring in a new one and the other one would end up with moldy, nasty coffee residue in it.

This teacher was always about 5 minutes late for class, and we, being the AP students, were mostly on time for class. One day, one of the guys had brought in this huge weed (at least a foot tall) from a nearby field, and planted it in one of the moldy coffee cups. The teacher came in and proceeded to start class, and it was probaby 10-15 minutes before he saw the plant out of the corner of his eye. He jumped and took the Lord's name in vain while we all laughed. He thought it was funny, though.

BadCat

01-15-2010, 11:11 AM

I can't talk about it because I'm not sure the statute of limitations has expired.

Rockntractor

01-15-2010, 11:25 AM

My stepbrother passed out in a chair at my apartment. I went to the refrigerator and got a hot dog and slipped it into the zipper of his pants so it was poking out. I went over to the door and knocked loudly. I yelled at him and told him we had company and he was exposing himself. He looked down at his pants and grabbed the wiener to stuff it back in and it came off in his hand. Their was a look of absolute horror on his face!

Gingersnap

01-15-2010, 01:35 PM

It's warming up and we may get into the low 50s today. The weekend looks to be pretty nice. I need to get out and fill up all the birdfeeders today.

TOTD: There is no lack of practical joke material when you work in a lab. We had this one guy who a decent chemist but he liked to make intermediates for designer drugs during work time. Who wouldn't? I mean not every home is equipped with state-of-the-art fume hoods and condensers. We didn't like this because we felt that he would get caught someday and we'd have some tedious explaining to do. We told him to knock it off but he didn't.

A friend and I decided to end the madness. Part of this guy's deal was babysitting a kind of delicate reaction that involved heating and maintaining a strict series of temperature gradients in a solution that was more or less pee yellow. The process took about 2 hours all told and it involved a lot of close-up examination and temp checking. The guy would eat his lunch about 2 feet away from the hood while all this went on (also against procedures).

The day we did this my friend I wore throw away clothes under our lab coats. When our victim had set up his equipment and had the reaction started, he nipped out for a break. My friend filled up a new flask with urine and replaced it on the heater with a stirrer. We added some inert crystal material to mimic the material that was supposed to be going into solution. I dumped the real compound and we went back to work.

After about 20 minutes this horrendous stench got going. Nothing unusual in a lab and we were located directly across from the autoclaving room. The guy eventually starts to get concerned. It looks perfect but it smells funny. He's sniffing and checking, sniffing and checking. He's eating his lunch in the middle of this stench.

He's real concerned and starts to check the pH when we start laughing uncontrollably. We tell him and his lunch makes an abrupt reappear ace. We tell him that next time, we'll rat him out. We kick on all the fans, takes showers, change our clothes and go back to work. He spends the rest of the day coated in pee film.

End of problem. :)

RobJohnson

01-15-2010, 04:38 PM

We helped friends play an elaborate one; we spent the afternoon moving furniture out of the living and dining rooms so they were empty. That evening, when their daughter arrived after a long drive, my husband and I (who were strangers to her) opened the door and convinced the daughter that her parents had moved, we had just bought the house, and we had no idea where they were. This went on for quite awhile until her father couldn't contain his laughter any more and came down. She didn't see the joke quite as well as he did.

That was mean, but funny!

RobJohnson

01-15-2010, 04:43 PM

It's warming up and we may get into the low 50s today. The weekend looks to be pretty nice. I need to get out and fill up all the birdfeeders today.

TOTD: There is no lack of practical joke material when you work in a lab. We had this one guy who a decent chemist but he liked to make intermediates for designer drugs during work time. Who wouldn't? I mean not every home is equipped with state-of-the-art fume hoods and condensers. We didn't like this because we felt that he would get caught someday and we'd have some tedious explaining to do. We told him to knock it off but he didn't.

A friend and I decided to end the madness. Part of this guy's deal was babysitting a kind of delicate reaction that involved heating and maintaining a strict series of temperature gradients in a solution that was more or less pee yellow. The process took about 2 hours all told and it involved a lot of close-up examination and temp checking. The guy would eat his lunch about 2 feet away from the hood while all this went on (also against procedures).

The day we did this my friend I wore throw away clothes under our lab coats. When our victim had set up his equipment and had the reaction started, he nipped out for a break. My friend filled up a new flask with urine and replaced it on the heater with a stirrer. We added some inert crystal material to mimic the material that was supposed to be going into solution. I dumped the real compound and we went back to work.

After about 20 minutes this horrendous stench got going. Nothing unusual in a lab and we were located directly across from the autoclaving room. The guy eventually starts to get concerned. It looks perfect but it smells funny. He's sniffing and checking, sniffing and checking. He's eating his lunch in the middle of this stench.

He's real concerned and starts to check the pH when we start laughing uncontrollably. We tell him and his lunch makes an abrupt reappear ace. We tell him that next time, we'll rat him out. We kick on all the fans, takes showers, change our clothes and go back to work. He spends the rest of the day coated in pee film.